Category: Photo Tip

 

I always like where possible to get things right in camera.  The above shot was taken outside in the garden, the sun was a light source but I also used a Elinchrom flash head and large softbox on a C Stand, the flash was actually the main source and the daylight as fill, but often its just not possible to do this kind of thing as the location is not suitable.

It is in situations like this where compositing can be the answer.  You take a photo outside to use as a background and take the main photo in the studio.  You then combine the two using photoshop.

Below is a quick fantasy composite that is not intending to be realistic to show what I mean.

The key to making a realistic composite is making the lighting match and shooting with the intention of making a composite.

 

The above shot would make a likely composite.  The plain background was due to a seamless infinity curve in the studio, would make it easy to select just the model and place it on a background.

For the backgrounds I have never had a lot of success but then I read some tips on Scott Kellby’s blog about shooting for backgrounds.

Check it out and have a go, I know I will.

http://scottkelby.com/2013/how-to-realistic-shallow-depth-of-field-backgrounds-for-compositing/

Where possible I have tried to standardise on as few post production software packages as I can.

The majority of my work is all done in Adobe Lightroom but sometimes you need either the added power of a third party plug-in or application or its just easier to do in some packages.

I feel its better to be a master of one package and try to do as much as I can in it.

In the above photograph you have a basic flatly rendered JPeg, I have just added a crop to tighten up the image. I then ran it through my usual Adobe Lightroom work flow and I was pleased with the result but I still felt it lacked a little zing.

So I exported it as a tif into Photoshop CC to see what I could do with it in there. Now starting with a colour image there are at least four different ways to process an image to make it Black & White, including some very advanced techniques using LAB mode and also creating separate layers each Black & White based on the luminance values of each of the Red, Green and Blue Channels. All of which give very advanced control. Here through I just wanted the image to have a bit more pop and zing!

First of all I thought I would do a little more dodging and burning to improve the local contrast of a few areas. Now the dodge and burn tool in Photoshop is not the best and can cause issues and colour shift. Not too important with a Black & White image but still there are better ways of accomplishing this.

Now this technique is one that I learn’t from a printing tutorial by Jeff Schewe. Create a new layer and fill it with 50% Gray.

Now set the Layer mode to Overlay. Now to lighten parts of the image just paint on this lay with white (Dodge) and to darken parts of the image, just paint on this layer with black (Burn). Using a soft edged brush you can quickly and easily fine tune the image.

The next part is the contrast. I want the darker parts of the image to have a real boost in the contrast. I do this with a curves adjustment. While this has been possible in Lightroom since V4 it is more controllable in Photoshop.

For the dark portion of the image I have added two control points to steepen the curve and thus the contrast. I have added a third control point to bring down the mid-tones and return the highlights back to normal. For this image I felt the contrast in the mid-tones was still a little to high so I added a second Curves layer to bring it back under control.

I finished the image with a little sharpening.

So here is the finished image and this months “Picture of the Month”. I did try and reproduce this just in Lightroom but I could not get the same degree of control and the image lacked contrast.

This weekend its the annual Waddington Air Show.

Whether you have the latest SLR’s and big fast glass or a basic compact, with its mix of static displays and flight demonstrations, there is plenty for everyone to photograph.  One common disappointment is that often the photographs come out too dark.  Shooting into the bright sky can fool many light meters.  Back in the old film days I would switch to manual and take a reading from a grey card I would place in front of me to meter off.  The same light falling on the grey card was also falling onto the aircraft and this would give me a good basic exposure.

In case your wondering about the shot above, its a rather poor composite of two different shots I took when the Red Arrows flew over Lincoln.  A bit of fun you might say in Photoshop.